Anyone who has talked to immigrants both legal and illegal knows these folks are shipping huge amounts of tax-free cash out of the country by every means possible. Foreigners in the US are supporting their families around the world with under the table earnings and the scale is massive.
PING - for your attention, consideration, comments and discussion :)
This isn't a Band-aid, this is major funding for Mexico. It's the second largest cash cow. Vincente Fox no doubt will call this an economic attack on his country. This will force Mexicans to physically take the money back and when they try to cross the border with more than $25 G's it get confiscated. Use the money to pay for Border Guards.
Zero chance.
As I posted on another thread on a similar concept in Georgia, this is just like government to sneak in under the guise of 'doing something' about a problem it created with socialist policies.
I was initially for this, but then I realized that the solution of the problem is not submerging further underground millions of illegals. It's to get them the hell out. If lawmakers know that the illegals are using these places, WTF is stopping them from having cops stop in and check documents on Fridays at Western Unions, or for that matter, hospital emergency rooms where the illegals congregate to get their free medical care? And WTF is stopping them from taking advantage of student-teacher night to ask for tips on which parents are illegals, too, and getting the illegals deported without putting more onus on private wire-transfer services?
We know the answer to that, of course--the legislators wouldn't get police endorsements if they made cops do their !#@$!!$# jobs. And why would they have anyone in government do their jobs when they can get the private sector to assume the costs? It's a wonderful way to transfer the burden of policing illegals further onto the private sector instead of having the government do what it's already taxing us to do.
I think that the idea behind this legislation has merit, but I am concerned about a few loopholes that I don't think that this legislation addresses. First, what is to stop the illegal aliens from having anchor babies in the US which are under current practice considered citizens of the US from transferring money for their parents? Can the illegals give their money to their underage children or anyother US citizen and have them wire transfer the money for them?
I think that the best way to do this is just require that you be legally here in order to work. If employers are highering illegal immigrants then that is the issue that needs to be addressed. After all if illegal immigrants are not making money in the first place, then they won't be able to wire transfer it.